Help journalist Linda Tirado, aka @KillerMartinis, who was blinded in her left eye while covering protests in Minneapolis on Friday, May 29, 2020.

 

First, an apology. We at OTYCD have been meaning to write a post about Tirado for, oooh, over a year, at least. She understands how to report about the realities of poverty like few journalists do.

 

We held off because we wanted whoever wrote the post to have read Tirado’s book, Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, and offer a book review while telling you how awesome she is.

 

But we wanted to make sure we paid full price for her book, and OTYCD has no budget, and Trumpstuff kept happening and kept happening and kept happening, and we just never got to it.

 

So we’re sorry, deeply sorry, that we’re doing our first post on Linda Tirado because she was hurt while covering the Minneapolis protests. She believes she was struck by a rubber bullet that launched from where police had been at the time.

 

Protesters helped her get out and get to a hospital. Doctors tell her she is likely to permanently lose sight in her left eye.

 

Tirado was one of several journalists who were injured by police during protests of deadly police brutality in late May, 2020. She appears to be the most badly injured of those who suffered attacks.

 

In true Linda Tirado fashion, she live-tweeted the aftermath of the incident through her @KillerMartinis account, staying bracingly true and darkly funny all the while:

 

 

So me and this nurse have gotten into a gallows humor contest to see which is worse, a nurse or a journo I think since I’m the one with the exploded eye I win by default

 

Guys I just realized that now I have like an unbeatable excuse to refuse to parallel park

 

Up side, I do not have the plague, they tested me for covid and that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Fucked world where I’m like “well they might have exploded my eyeball but at least it got me basic medical care!”

 

Okay because people are awful and we can’t even take a day off it comes to my attention that some folks are using my injury to argue that people should stop protesting Fuck that, stay in the streets double for me, cause I can’t. It was police who shot me, not protesters.

 

It was protesters who got me to the hospital, who gave me medical supplies and acted as my eyes when I couldn’t see past the blood and swelling I am not your establishment’s argument. And I am happy to tell you so directly.

 

No worries, I’ve been back at work for five hours now My job is to witness and they only got my left eye. My right one is good to go

 

 

Tirado is a fine journalist, amazing on Twitter, and hugely generous, helping folks out by soliciting donations online.

 

She needs us now. Her medical bills must be high already, and we’re guessing she’ll need more surgery in the future.

 

 

So! Please, sign on to her Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/bootstrap/posts

 

 

Buy Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, preferably from an independent bookstore:

https://www.strandbooks.com/product/9780399171987?title=hand_to_mouth_living_in_bootstrap_america

 

Follow Linda Tirado on Twitter:

@KillerMartinis

 

…and boost her work wherever and however you can. Ask your library to acquire her book. Share her tweets. Share her work.

 

Subscribe to One Thing You Can Do by clicking the blue button on the upper right or checking the About & Subscribe page. And tell your friends about the blog!

 

FWIW, we put up the Twitter logo rather than a photo of Linda Tirado for a bunch of reasons. We don’t want to use a post-injury hospital photo because it’ll stay on top of this post forever, and we don’t want it to “stand for” her and be the way you “meet” her. And the portrait photos she uploaded to Patreon and Twitter are too small to scrape. If a good, larger image of her appears, we’ll swap it in.